No matte what size I set my brushes at, when I click to place them in a document they are around 30% smaller than the chosen size. I can't figure out what settings I need to change if that, in fact, is the problem.

OK…I purchased and downloaded Elements 9.0 for my MACs ( I have two in two different locations). I installed on both and the brushes work as expected on one of them but not the other. Guess that is why I asked about a reinstall….possibly something went wrong on this computer when installed.

I am just trying to create an image for a background paper and have selected a brush. I resize it with the bracket key (and have also tried resizing with the slider on the menu up top). I hover the brush over the area I want to place it and then click. The brush is smaller than the hover image every time. Makes it hard to know where to lace my brush for proper placement. As far as the percentage…..that actually is a guesstimate, but it isn't 50% smaller that's for sure.

OK, if Barbara's suggestion of re-building the Preferences doesn't help, then it's probably a hadware problem. Make sure you have the latest video drivers installed and you don't have a weird display setting somewhere.

Here it is. Not sure if I captured the brush options bar you were speaking about, but the image shows the difference in size between the cursor and the actual image after clicking. Hope you can figure out what is wrong. Thanks so much for sticking with me!

Oh, with specialty brushes like that it's sometimes normal. I thought you were having this problem with a plain ol' round brush. Just as some of them (leaf for instance) have a scatter setting that can't be overridden, so that you aren't likely to get an impression right where you click.

Thank you Barbara. I didn't see that. I am not at the problem computer now and won't be for several days but will check this out when I can. I don't ever recall changing that or seeing that option in my preferences.